PA State Backgrounder

8/7/2019 PA State Backgrounder

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April , 2011

The Proposed Palestinian State: A Compendium

David BedeinDirector

Israel Resource News AgencyCenter for Near East Policy ResearchBeit Agron International Press CenterSuite 105-10637 Hillel StreetJerusalem 94581 Israel

Tel. +972-547-222-661Fax +972-2-623-6470www.israelbehindthenews.com


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The "Kill and Run" Precedent of the New Israeli-Palestinian AccordJerusalem Post

February 25, 1997

On January 14, 1997, at 12:00 noon, as the Israeli cabinet gathered in Jerusalem to begin itsdeliberations on the approval of the Oslo accords, something else transpired in Ramat Dania, a

neighborhood within walking distance from the Knesset.

A young Palestinian Arab wielding an axe hacked Yaakov Yamin, a sixty year old Israeli buildingforeman, to pieces.

The killer then hopped in a taxi to Bethlehem, only ten minutes away.

The taxi driver later described to me how, upon arrivingat the Bethlehem checkpoint, his extremelynervous passenger jumped out of the cab and ran into Bethlehem.

The taxi driver called the Israeli police as did the drivers employer..

The police, however, demonstrated little interest in the matter, arriving on the scene over an hour later.They police finally got around to interrogating the driver and obtain a complete description of themurderer, preparing a hand-drawn sketch of the killer. The sketch was never broadcast by anytelevision station nor did it appear in the print media. Neither did thet Israeli police forward the sketchto the Palestinian police. What the, the Israeli police spokesman did say, however, was that no suchsketch existed.

Yaakov Yamins murder made Israels front page news the next day, sharing headlines with the historicIsraeli government meeting that had taken place at the time of the murder. The purpose of thatsignificant meeting was to confirm the Israeli governments backing of the latest accord with thePalestine Authority.

"Reciprocity" was the theme of this agreement, with the Israeli government declaring clearly andforthrightly that it would only cede concessions to the PA if and when the PA demonstrated theappropriate confidence-building measures that would show that it was indeed keeping its part of the

accords.

The day after the murder, the front page of the popular Israeli newspaper YediotAharonotfeatured aphotograph of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Arafat on top of the page, and a small snapshot of YaakovYamin on the corner of the page.

The issue of killers who had escaped to the Palestine Authority was high on the agenda of the newaccord, according to all Israeli government spokespeople.


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The retiring Israeli attorney general, Rabin appointee Michael Ben-Yair, presented the government witha long awaited legal opinion declaring in no uncertain terms that the accords signed by the previous PAgovernmentrequired the PA to extradite to Israel killers within its jurisdiction.

Israel Minister of Justice Tzachi Hanegbi followed Ben-Yair by succinctly stating that if the new

accords did not require the PA to hand over killers, he would not vote for them.

Meanwhile, the Yamin killing and murderers escape disappeared from the publics consciousness. Iasked government ministers if the cabinet would send a representative to his funeral or to the shiva(house of mourners) home. I received no response. No government minister or member of Knessetvisited the Yamin home.

I asked the Israeli police spokesperson of they were pursuing the killer in Bethlehem, or if the Israelipolice was asking the Palestinian police to hand over the killer. The spokesperson responded that the

question was premature. I visited the Palestinian police station in Bethlehem to learn what they knew.They told me that if the killer had come to Bethlehem, he was welcome. I called IDF radio, Israel Stateradio, Israel State television, Yediot AharonotandMaariv daily newspapers to see why they were notfollowing up on the Yamin murder, even as a side bar to the government meeting.

The response I received from the news editors left me speechless: We have been asked to drop thecase and not to dwell on the issue. Besides, the peace process is more newsworthy. So not a wordappeared in the Israeli media - and certainly not in the foreign press - on the Yamin murder and thesubsequent escape of his killer to the Palestine Authority "safe haven" only ten minutes away.

That was the precedent of the latest accords that were approved by the Israeli government. An Arab canmurder a Jew, escape to a warm welcome in the Palestine Authority safe haven only several minutesaway and the matter will simply be sanitized by a cooperative Israeli and foreign media. Pressconspiracy? Hardly. Government policy? Perhaps.

On Tu B'shvat (Israeli Arbor Day), I had the opportunity to visit the Yamin family, who had finishedtheir week-long period of mourning on the previous day. I was accompanied by two people. YehudahWachsman, whose son Nachshon had been abducted and murdered by Arab terrorists only two yearsago. Nachson's chief abductor Muhammad Deif, resides in Gaza and the Israeli government has somuch as requested Deif's arrest. Mr .Y, the taxi driver ,was also with us. He described the killer to thefamily and confirmed that he had sat with the Israeli police for no less than eight hours, as theyprepared a sketch of his passenger.

According to Israeli law, victims of terror attacks receive immediate attention and care by the mentalhealth professionals of the Israeli Defense Ministry Rehabilitation Department and Israels NationalInsurance Institute.


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The Israeli police, however, will only say that they are "99% sure" that Yaakov Yamin was murderedin a terror attack, and not in a robbery. This despite the fact that Yamin's bulging wallet was never takenfrom his body.

Therefore, using this ploy, the Israeli government is not legally obligated to provide any mental health

professionals to assist the family. Under normal circumstances, a police or military official wouldappear at the home, escorted by a doctor or psychiatrist to inform the family of the murder. Instead, thefamily discovered the killing when a journalist showed up at their door requesting a picture of thedeceased.

If the government indeed acknowledges that this was a terror attack, it will have to answer some verydifficult questions and will be asked to explain to its citizens how the peace process allows Arabs to killand escape to the sanctuary of the Palestine Authority.


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RedLights & Green Lights: Weapons Control in the Palestine Authority?Israel Resource Review

March 31, 1997

At a time when Hamas threatens more terror activity against targets throughout Israel, it may beinstructive to note the extent to which the Palestine Authority directly licenses arms for Hamas instead

of confiscating the latters weapons.

The Cairo Accord, signed between the Israeli government and Arafat on May 4, 1994, established strictregulations for firearms possession in the PA, in an attempt to minimize terrorist attacks carried out byPalestinian groups and individuals opposed to the Oslo Accords. Arafat agreed to restrict the possessionof firearms by ordering the PA to take three steps: disarm militias, confiscate weapons, and issue gunlicenses for pistols only to individuals demonstrating a need for them, and only with Israel's consent.

Arafat and the PA, however, have yet to implement that agreement, thus perpetuating a situation inwhich the ability of groups and individuals to carry out terrorist attacks remains undiminished.For eleven months the PA sat idle. Only in April 1995, following the Islamic Jihad terror attack near

Kfar Darom which took the lives of six Israelis and one American, did the PA announce a May 1995deadline for turning in illegal weapons. Yet by the appointed deadline, only several dozen weapons hadbeen relinquished by a small number of civilians.

IDF Lieut. Col. Shabak confirmed that the Palestinian police had only confiscated a few weapons bythe deadline. These numbers pale in comparison to the total number of unlicensed weapons in the PAarea of jurisdiction, which, while unknown, were estimated by Arafat himself as early as March 1995 tobe more than 26,000.

Five militias under the PA's jurisdiction remain armed: Fatah Hawks, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, thePopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of

Palestine (DFLP). Not only has the PA refrained from taking steps to disarm these groups, but highranking officials continue to state their refusal to do so.

Shortly after the signing of the agreement, Col. Jibril Rajoub, head of Arafat's Preventive SecurityService said, "We sanctify the weapons found in the possession of the national factions which aredirected against the occupation."

Echoing this sentiment only a year later, , Palestinian Minister of Justice Freih Abu Middein, said thePalestinian police would not disarm Hamas or the Islamic Jihad. A senior Hamas official confirmed thatthe PA had not demanded their disarmament, saying that "the PA is not asking us to disarm, just toreport to it."

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Liberation Army police force continue to issue licenses for automaticweapons and gun permits to well known members of terrorist organizations. Both Shabak (IsraelsGeneral Security Services, the GSS) and the Palestinian Police commander in Gaza, Gen. Ghazi Jabali,confirmed that the Islamic Jihad and Hamas leaders have received permits to carry weapons, Shabaknoting, "most of the permits issued thus far have been given to members of the opposition parties."Shabak also acknowledged that some of these permits were for "light automatic weapons," a statementconfirmed by the Palestinian Minister of Information. As if to allay fears, Abu Medein said that he hadreceived assurances that Hamas and Islamic Jihad members would "keep their weapons at home."


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The issue is not about whether or not Arafat turns "green lights" on or off for Hamas or the IslamicJihad. Silently and seemingly unknown to the Israeli public, Arafat has heavily armed both terrorgroups, and they will decide when and how to use their weapons against Israeli targets.

Why is the Israeli public unaware that the Palestine Authority has been issuing weapons to Hamas andthe Islamic Jihad, since May 1995 ? The story was reported in all of the Israeli media, - but only on the

back pages and never as a lead item.

After all, nobody wants to disturb the good news of the peace process,. let alone the momentum.


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Arafat, the Palestine Authority and the Hamas: A Surprising Cooperative

RelationshipPhiladelphia Inquirer

August 11, 1997

Almost four years ago, when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yasser.Arafat, the

head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, on the White House lawn, most people in Israel andabroad anticipated that Arafat would form a new Arab entity that could.restrain the violent Muslimmovements known as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

That, at least, was the rationale behind what later became known as the Oslo Peace Process. Israel wasexpected to cede land, while Arafats PLO was expected to form a new Palestine.Authority that wouldfight Hamas/Islamic Jihad and other Arab terror groups that continued to threaten the lives of people inIsrael.

However from the very outset, the opposite has occurred. Instead of cracking down on Hamas, Arafatopenly woos the terrorist organization.

In December 1994 when I asked Arafat about Hamas at the press conference he held in Oslo, where hewas soon to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, he answered by.saying, Hamas are my brothers. I willhandle them in my own way.

When the PLO celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in January 1995, Arafat delivered.a series of lecturesin Gaza and in Jericho to Palestinian Arabs . In these lectures he praised suicide bombers and.refused tocondemn the Hamas attacks which took place at that time. Arafats speeches of.praise for Hamas weretelevised by the new Palestinian TV network which was directly controlled.and operated by Arafat.Video cassettes of Arafats harangues became popular in the.Palestinian Arab open market.

Arafats strategy was best summed up by US Ambassador to Israel, and presidential confidante, artinIndyk, who told theLos Angeles Times in March 1996 that Arafat had decided to.cooperate rather thanto fight Hamas.

Arafats cooperation with Hamas was not in words only, but also in deed.

On May 9, 1995, I covered a Gaza press conference held by Arafats local Palestine Liberation.ArmyPolice Chief Ghazzi Jabali, in which the representatives of Arafats Palestine Authority officiallyannounced that they would license weapons for the Hamas. Only one month before, Hamas had carriedout an attack on an Israeli civilian bus near Gaza, killing six young Israelis and one American student,Aliza Flatow.

At Jabalis packed press conference, carried live on PBC radio, the police chief announced that Hamasleaders such as Mahmoud A-Zahar would be allowed, and even encouraged to own weapons underthe protection of the Palestine Authority. On the same day, our Palestinian TV crew filmed an armed A-Zahar, standing in front of a skull and cross bones imposed on a map of Israel, as he addressed an angrymob in Gaza and called for the bloody overthrow of the State of.Israel.

Jabali would later assure theAssociated Press on May 14, 1995 that he was expecting the Hamas andIslamic to keep their licensed weapons at home.


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For the last two years, however, both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have openly operated with weaponslicensed by the PA. Meanwhile, all levels of Arafats military forces acknowledge that they haverecruited radical Moslems to join forces with them.

On each occasion when Arafat was asked to crack down on these Islamic groups which took credit

for fatal terror bombs against Israel, Arafat ordered the mass round-ups that resulted in confessions, andthen the mass release of prisoners.

In thirty seven documented instances since 1994, the Palestine Authority has offered asylum to Hamasand Islamic Jihad members who murdered Israelis and took refuge in the new safe havens ofPalestinian Arab cities that were protected by Arafats armed forces.

A case in point: Muhammad Deif, the admitted Hamas mastermind of the October 1994 kidnapping andmurder of nineteen year-old American-Israeli, Nachshon Wachsman, wanders Gaza freely, armed anduntouched. When I asked Arafats commander of the Palestine Liberation Army about Deif, he told methat he was under direct orders from Yasser Arafat not to touch Deif. This, despite the fact that USPresident Bill Clinton declared at Nachshons grave in March 1996 that Israel should not continue anynegotiating process with Arafat and the Palestine Authority until and unless Arafat hands Deif over tostand trial.

Every Friday, over the past three years, Arafat-appointed Hamas Muftis in Nablus and Jerusalemdeliver weekly sermons in their mosques calling for jihad, holy war, against the state and people ofIsrael.

Not to be outdone, Arafat consistently addresses Palestinian crowds as if he were trying to emulate theHamas, and not as if he was interested in restraining them.

Arafats own Jihad harangues have continued when the Oslo peace process was progressing nicelywithIsrael, and when it was not.

Arafats arming, encouragement and emulation of the Hamas occur in the open, and in public domain,at a time when more than two hundred foreign and Israeli news bureaus cover Arafat and his newPalestine Authority.

An unwritten rule exists in the media, even among the Israeli press, that downplays the significance ofthe PA-Hamas cooperation, and Arafats calls for armed struggle with.Israel.

Many close followers of the Middle East situation incorrectly assume that there are two entities - thePLO and the Hamas, and that they somehow remain in conflict.


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When Jewish Organizations Research Anti-Semitism and Delete Mention of the

Palestine AuthorityIsrael Resource Review

April 27, 1998

In a joint news conference held on April 22, 1998, the day before Holocaust Remembrance Day,

representatives of Stephen Roth Institute of Anti-Semitism at Tel Aviv University, the Anti-DefamationLeague and the World Jewish Congress distributed a summary of their annual international survey ofanti-Semitism that deleted any reference to the Palestine Authority, the Palestine Ministry ofInformation and the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation.

The reason they gave for this omission was that the full 400 page text is still at the printers.

The full text, however, explicitly notes the anti-Jewish tirades that have emanated daily from thePalestine Authority since its inception in 1994.

A case in point: On the morning before this report was issued, the official television station of the

Palestine Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) aired a program in which a childrens chorus chanted jihadand called for the extermination of the Jewish state. What can one glean from such a message from theP.A. the day before Holocaust Remembrance Day?

This PBC program is fully accessible to the media to the ADL, the World Jewish Congress, and to TelAviv University.

The media and these mainstream agencies, however, have made a conscious decision: to obfuscate -from the people of Israel and from public opinion as a whole - the expressions the Palestine Authorityrelate to their own people.

The PA media obfuscation policy follows the request made of the Israeli Broadcasting Authority in1995 by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to refrain from any news reports that feature what Arafatsays to his own people in Arabic.

In their own words, officials of the Israel Broadcasting Authority who knew of the policy, stated thatRabin had explained that reportage of Arafats speeches would harm the peace process. Rabin carriedthis policy to the United States as well.

In September 1995, just before to the initialing of the second Oslo Accords at the White House, the USHouse International Relations Committee conducted audiovisual hearings, during which time morethan thirty members of Congress viewed videos of the programs featured on the Palestine Broadcasting

Corporation. Although more than fifteen news bureaus covered the event, however Rabins cousin,Israeli Ambassador to the US Itamar Rabinovitch, working together with a high official of the US StateDepartment, lobbied the American media and requested that they not report these hearings. With theexception of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Washington Jewish Week, the media acceeded totheir request.

People in Israel are in the dark, knowing very little of the daily dose of incitement that has spewed forthfrom the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation since the inception of the Oslo process. Such matters areseen as the obsession of a few anti-peacenicks.


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Thist is due, in part, to a policy of self-censorship that the media has imposed upon itself and adoptedby groups such as the ADL and the World Jewish Congress. The fact that the full report on anti-Semitism will be issued in several weeks will have little effect on the public domain. The ADL and theWJC will not conduct a press conference nor organize any forum on the subject of official anti-Semitism emanating from the PBC, which is under Arafats direct control.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day in 1998, let it be remembered that three prominent institutions of theJewish people prevented the public from obtaining knowledge that they each had: the newly-createdPalestine Authority makes no bones about its warlike and anti-Semitic intentions.

In 1996, the full text of the same international survey that was distributed to the press made no mentionwhatsoever of the Palestine Authority. In 1997, the full text distributed to the media mentioned the PAin only a few paragraphs that analyzed one PA poet.

In 1998, however, when the full text included material on the PA, the press conference organizerschose not to distribute it. In fact, they deleted any mention of or reference to the Palestine Authority inthe summary they made available to the media.

There is legitimate concern about systematic Holocaust denial, when organizations make it theirbusiness to prevent people from knowing about the murder of six million Jews and the events leadingup to it.

What about the effort for systematic Arafat denial?


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Israel at Fifty Makes an Offer Territories for Peace, Not TerritoriesPhiladelphia Inquirer

May 4, 1998

On the occasion of Israels fiftieth anniversary, the Jewish State finally finds itself in a full-scale peaceprocess, following formal peace treaties signed with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994).

This is the result of a surprising turn in Israeli public opinion, which now widely accepts the 1974Yariv-ShemTov formula of territories for peace, which at the time it was suggested was embraced byless than fifteen of Israels 120-member parliament. By the 1996 Israeli elections, 118 members electedto Israels Knesset had run on platforms that favored and endorsed the concept of territories for peace,as embodied in the 1993 Oslo Accords signed on the White House lawn by US President Bill Clinton,PLO leader Yasser Arafat and the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

This most recent Israeli election occurred at a time of unprecedented Israeli-Arab cooperation in almostevery field. Israels level of exports to Arab countries, some of whom are still in a formal state of warwith Israel, has surpassed a billion dollars. Israels former Minister of Public Security, Attorney Moshe

Shachal, who recently resigned from the Knesset to resume his law practice, now represents Arabcountries from the Gulf States.

Israels former Military Liason to the West Bank and the Palestine Authority, General Oren Shachor,now exports soft drinks to Kuwait, working with Palestinian partners, some of whom spent years inIsraeli prisons.

Likud Member of Knesset Gideon Ezra, an Israeli career intelligence officer, opened a firm togetherwith Palestinian partners to locate stolen vehicles.

The examples of economic cooperation are matched by a new social milieu. No less than five hundred

Arab-Jewish reconciliation organizations are now registered with Israels Registrar of Non-ProfitOrganizations, some of which have been initiated by Arabs.

Indeed, Palestinian Arab journalist Daoud Kuttab, Arafats press liason during the Intifada riots of thelate eighties, initiated a private media firm that cooperates with Israeli and American televisioncompanies to produce the first Middle East Sesame Street in order to encourage Israeli and Arabchildren to play together without stereotypes and hatred.

The obvious question is: With all this cooperation, why are the peace talks between Israel and the newPalestine Authority so bogged down? Have Israelis lost their desire for peace. I would think not. HavePalestinian Arabs had second thoughts? Not in my judgment.

As a religious Jew and a social work professional , I have the opportunity to participate in timelydialogues with Palestinian Arabs from all walks of life. The Palestinian Arab people want peace. Sowhat is the problem?

It is an institution known as the United Nations, which in Jerusalem is headquartered on what the NewTestament refers to as the Hill of Evil Counsel. The Back in 1949, the U.N. established the UnitedNations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), that today plays host to more than three millionPalestinian Arab refugees, the descendants of650,000 Arabs who left the area which, in 1948, becameknown as the new State of Israel. With the establishment of the State,Israel absorbed more than 800,000


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Why is the UNRWA Refugee Camp in Shuafat Seething?The Jerusalem Post

October 13, 1998

At a time when the issue of Palestinian refugees surfaces on the agenda of the peace process, a visit tothe one Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem can provide one with some understanding of the

complexity of the refugee issue at hand.

A three-minute ride from Mount Scopus, traveling north, well within the city limits of Jerusalem, onewill find the only United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Arab refugee camp inJerusalem, located in the town of Shuafat. This is part of Jerusalem, and Shuafat is not affected byclosures of the West Bank.

The Shuafat refugee camp appears in the news every so often when there are riots in the camp or stoneshurled at passing vehicles. It remains a mystery to most people as to why there must be so much angerand tension in the camp.

I went to Shuafat to find out.

It would seem that some 5,500 Palestinian Arab refugees live in the Shuafat camp, three thousand ofwhom are children. These people are the descendants of Arabs who, in 1948, left what is now theAshkelon region, and who were initially settled in the hovels of the burnt out Jewish Quarter in the OldCity of Jerusalem. From there, they were abruptly relocated by King Hussein to Shuafat in 1966.

Jordan had been considering renovating the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem at the time. What theJordanian king did not realize was that his Project Removal to Shuafat would allow the IDF to enteran abandoned Jewish Quarter in 1967.

Ahmed, the volunteer head of the committee for the disabled in Shuafat, is a one-man greetingcommittee for Shuafat. He introduces himself as the man who was elected by the residents of Shuafatto run programs for disabled Shuafat residents. The term disabled defines anyone from those who arehandicapped to children with learning disabilities. Unlike other Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalemwhere various professional services are offered, they do not in Shuafat, other than on a voluntary basis.

Ahmed, who works as a school teacher at Shuafats elementary school, says that he voluntarily devotesall of his spare time to work at the center for the disabled in the Shuafat camp. , . While he describesprograms and centers in other areas of East Jerusalem that provide professional paid staff for thedisabled, he explains, UNRWA simply does not provide such servicesPeople in the camp hate theUN and UNRWA. They strike them at work and when they come to visit the camp.

Palestinians interviewed by the Israeli/Palestinian Center For Research and Information(IPCRI),described UNRWAs assistance as meaningless, and spoke about tension between camp residents andUNRWA.

We believe that UNRWA wants to withdraw from this camp and give it to the Palestinian Authority,said Omar, Ahmeds colleague on the ad hoc Public Relations Committee for Shuafat.

According to Omar, The PR committee, believes that this is the reason UNRWA does not supplyservices to the best of its ability.


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Not that Omar is satisfied about the PA managing things, either, since he claims that the PA does nothave funds allocated to help UNRWA camps. As far as the PA is concerned, Shuafat people havehomes to go back to in the villages that they left back in 1948, says Omar.

Omar is correct. One of the first decisions of the Palestine Authority back in 1994 was to deny aid to

the UNRWA refugee camps, since this would violate the right of return of Palestinian Arab refugees, asprescribed by UN Resolution #194.

So much for the expectations of the Oslo process, that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabsliving in refugee camps would be taken care of by an autonomous Palestinian entity.

Omar comments that when he walks around the camp every day, he sees a look of abandonmentupon the faces of the men sitting around him. UNRWA wants to desert them and they do not want to beunder sovreignty of the Palestinian Authority. Their lives lay in the hands of ruthless politicians. As aresult, the refugees maintain an unstable relationship between the UNRWA representatives and theresidents in the camp.

When Shuafat refugee camp opened in 1966, camp residents say UNRWA was eagerly providingeducation, medical care, food, and social services.

That was then. Now, the reality is much harsher. The refugees of Shuafat camp wake up to the smell ofurine breezing through their tiny apartments. In the winter, floods streams rush through their narrowalleyways. Every year, there is talk of a new plan to pave streets and create sidewalks. The Jerusalemmunicipality maintains a standard offer to assist with sewage infrastructure and paving the streets, buttheir offer is consistently rejected. UNRWA will not permit this, since Israel is not recognized as ahost country.

Meanwhile, children and the elderly try to deal with the decline in services that were previouslyprovided by UNRWA.

Our children do not even have a playground, Omar said, as he walked past a group of Shuafatchildren kicking around a plastic bottle.

Back in 1966, Shuafat camp was large enough to house all of its then 1,000 inhabitants. No longer isthis the case.

In Shuafat, as in other UNRWA camps, there is not enough room to expand the housing. UNRWAtherefore builds upward. Apartments are stacked like blocks, one on top of each other. Families of tenare often packed in three bedroom apartments.

Palestinian refugees have one of the largest population growth rates in the world, almost 5 percent perannum. In total, the 650,000 Arab refugees from 1948 have swelled to more than three million,confined by UNRWA since 1949 in 59 refugee camps. One million Arab refugees live in the UNRWAcamps in the West Bank and in Gaza.

The figures may be somewhat inflated, said one UNRWA health official, who asked not to beidentified. He claimed that this is because some identity cards of deceased UNRWA residents get usedagain.


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UNRWA promised us 12 sanitation workers and the exact number that work here is five, shoutedHadr, an angry Public Relations Committee member.

The lack of sanitation employment within the camp is evident by the piles of garbage and sewage thatclog the streets of Shuafat. The small number of UNRWA sanitation employees are unable to stop the

garbage from piling up. This is probably why Shuafat looks more like a garbage dump than anythingelse.

The Shuafat refugees also complain about the UNRWA health care services.

Some of the camps residents leave to find heath care outside of the camp because they feel that itbetter serves their needs.

Clinics within the camps are equal if not better than hospitals in the surrounding area, respondsIbrahim Jibril, Public Information Assistant for UNRWA at UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem.

Yet many UNRWA refugee camp residents receive healthcare insurance from their jobs outside of thecamp, through Israel National Insurance Institute employment benefits. Many residents have to pay thefull price to get reasonable medical care.

When I go the UNRWA doctor for a stomachache, he gives me Paracetamol. When I go to the doctorbecause I have a headache, he gives me Paracetamol. When I ask him why he always gives me thatsame medicine, he says because UNRWA does not have money for medicine, Omar explained in adistressed voice.

Omar took out a blue card case and proudly presented it to me. Camp residents with blue cards, whichare equivalent to Palestinian work permits, are able to seek medical care outside of the camp. However,there are hundreds of Shuafat residents who do not possess a blue card; they have to suffer miserablywhen they need real medical assistance.

There are only two doctors who work in our Shuafat clinic: a general doctor and a dentist. The dentistnever comes to work. When we ask to see him they (UNRWA) tell us to go to a private doctor or to goto Jerusalem, Hadr said. Hadr, who recently needed root canal surgery, went to see if he could makean appointment with the dentist at the UNRWA clinic. The dentist was not in his office. Hadrspatience ran thin. Suffering extreme pain, he went to an Israeli dentist and paid a fee that he could notafford.

Anger in the UNRWA schools of Shuafat is demonstrated quite differently. One of the UNRWA perks isfree education until twelfth grade. When entering a Shuafat school, it looks like any other modernschool one you might see in Jerusalem. Indeed, the plaques on the adjacent boys and girls schools inShuafat designate that these schools were built from contributions recent received from Saudi Arabia,which also constructed an adjoining mosque. The schools are much cleaner than the rest of the camp.The children seem well-fed and well-dressed in their neat school uniforms.

Yet the ascetic quality of the school contrasts with the curriculum. In an eighth grade English class, theteacher proudly proclaim the words occupation, land and return, and asks the children to repeatthem loudly. Thereafter, they sing their daily English song, a rendition of We Shall Overcome . inPalestine. When the children were asked what the the song means for them, each one of them spoke of


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returning to their homes in the area that is now Ashkelon.

None spoke about living in the Palestinian entity in the West Bank or Gaza. One child even introducedhis grandfather, Mohammad, who offered to provide a personal escort to the village where they willsoon be returning to, even though it no longer exists.

An UNRWA school official ironically explains that the Shuafat school curriculum is in line with theUNRWA mandate and the 1949 UN Resolution #194 that is reaffirmed every two years. This resolutionsupports the inalienable right of return of all Palestinian refugee to be repatriated to the homes thatthey left in 1948.

Between the garbage, the reduced health facilities, the discouragement with UNRWA and theexpectation of the right of return, it might be fair to say that Shuafat, the one refugee camp in Jerusalemis seething in expectation.

The Shuafat camp residents are well aware that the issue of refugees is now on the agenda of theOslo process as the final step in a peace process that has so far excluded them.

One can well expect the Shuafat camp residents - well educated and quite literate - to conductadditional riots if their physical situation does not improve or if they do not have assurances that theywill indeed return to Ashkelon very soon.

Meanwhile, the camp residents expectation that the Palestine Authority may soon take over officialcontrol of the Shuafat camp will represent a new headache to the city of Jerusalem and Israeli securityservices, which already copes with a dozen institutions of the Palestine Authority in its midst.


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In November 1996, I attended a meeting between Arafat and various Israeli groups that were concernedwith peace and with reconciliation, all of whom wanted to gain Arafat's approval to operate within thePalestine Authority.

Present were members of Arafat's inner circle, along with businessmen of the Palestine Chamber ofCommerce. Participating Israeli businessmen asked Arafat about the possibilities of joint business

ventures, perhaps in the area of tourism. Arafat nodded his head in approval.

However, a rule of the Palestine Authority remained unchanged. That rule discourages joint venturesbetween Israeli and Palestinian businessmen.

Another participant was Amit Leshem, a feisty redheaded woman who has led a network of educatorswho have pioneered multilevel dialogues between Israeli and Palestinian teachers, principals andstudents.

Leshem told Arafat that she was having trouble gaining cooperation from the Palestine Authority toconduct such dialogue within the schools or any premises within the Palestine Authority.

She mentioned that she was close to Dr Yossi Beillin, one of the architects of the peace process, andasked Arafat's to personally intervene to allow for schoolchildren of both peoples to interact.

Arafat was demonstrably interested in Ms. Leshem's idea, and asked innumerable questions, saying that"only when our schoolchildren begin to talk will there be peace".

Despite Arafat's reassurances to her, the rule of the Palestine Authority forbidding official contactbetween Israeli and Palestinian school children or school teachers remained unaltered.

Sitting near Ms. Leshem at that meeting was Yehudah Wachsman, who had recently established theNachshon Center for Tolerance and Understanding, named in memory of his son, Nachshon, who waskidnapped and later killer by Hamas assailants in October 1994.

Mr. Wachsman asked Arafat for the Palestine Authority to endorse and to participate in the Center'sdialogue activities. Wachsman indicated that he had been in touch with Palestinians who had indeedexpressed interest in his new institute.

Arafat responded with great emotion, relating his condolences to the Wachsman family, and promisingto do for the Wachsmans what he had done for the family of Leon Klinghoffer. Mr. Klinghoffer was theAmerican Jew, who was murdered by PLO member Mahmoud Abbas aboard the Achille Lauro cruiseship, despite the elderly mans being confined to a wheelchair at the time.

In response to a suit from the Klinghoffer family, Arafat had issued a press release stating that he wouldfund an institute for peace education in memory of Leon Klinghoffer.

The only problem was that Arafat never provided the necessary funds.

When Yehudah Wachsman followed up the meeting with Arafat by sending a letter to inviterepresentatives of the Palestine Authority to participate in the activities of the Nachshon Center forTolerance and Understanding, he received no reply;not from Arafat nor any representative of thePalestine Authority.


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PA AccountabilityThe Jewish Advocate of Boston, Mass.

November 22, 1999

While the US Congress deliberates over whether or not to comply with the request of President Clintonto grant an additional $400 million to the Palestinian Authority, a team of Palestinian and Israeli

journalists have prepared a comprehensive report concerning Palestinian Authority fiscalaccountability.

This carefully-researched Palestinian-Israeli analysis reports severe financial mismanagement by thePA that casts doubt on the ability of the PA to be responsive to the health, education, welfare or eventhe business needs of the Palestinian Arab population.

Principle problems documented by the report:

At least two private bank accounts of the Palestinian Authority operate under the exclusive control ofYasser Arafat, and the monies that go through those accounts are not invested in any concerns of thePalestinian Arab people. Half a billion dollars remain in these private accounts.

The Palestinian Authority recklessly and brutally domineers the business affairs of the PalestinianArab population through monopolies in industries such as cement-mixing and gasoline, which kickback all profits to private coffers of PA officials. The US State Department estimates that there aretwenty-seven PA-controlled monopolies. Fourteen PA security services collect taxes from the Palestinian Arab population, with littlecoordination by the PA treasury. These militias all claim loyalty to Arafat under the aegis of the variousarms of the Palestinian Liberation Army. Assets of the PLO abroad are not being transferred to the Palestinian Authority. Laxity of supervision from donor-nations has given Arafat free and arbitrary control over the $2.75billion received so far from those nations. Proliferation of thousands of unnecessary employees in public service of the Palestinian Authority

Meanwhile, the report notes that agreements signed between Arafat and all donor nations to thePalestinian Authority require total supervision of the PAs bank accounts, along with verification andcertification of the exact use of the funds. For that reason, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) wasbrought in as a consultant to the Palestinian staff to prepare the Authoritys annual budget.

The report points out that the Palestinian Authority gladly accepts foreign donations but is dismayed atthe supervision accompanying it. In fact, two budgetary systems operate within the PA. One is ruled byArafat with little or no accountability to the World Bank, the IMF, and donor nations. The other isunder the supervision of the contributing countries which serves to develop PA infrastructure.

The World Bank and the IMF which represent the donor nations, have repeatedly demanded that theAuthority close the secret accounts that remain under Arafats personal control, and whose assets run inexcess of half a billion dollars. Arafat has consistently ignored those requests, with no consequences.

At the conference of donor nations to the PA held in Japan in mid-October, the Palestinian Authoritypromised to clean up the arbitrary accounts and to make various economic reforms. In privatediscussions, however, Palestinian Authority representatives joked in the corridors of the conference thatthey will continue to do whatever they like with the money that they receive.

A theory propagated by proponents of the Oslo process was that the flow of capital to the Palestinian


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the Jews.

Such manipulation of children was not expected to be part of the peace process. After all, peaceeducation was to be included in the second paragraph of the Oslo Declaration of Principles, issued andsigned by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jorgen Holst, and PLOleader YasserYasser Arafat in September, 1993.

Today, almost seven years to the day from the signing of the Declaration of Principles, and despitenumerous grass-roots efforts at reconciliation, the official organs of the PLO and its administrativecreation, the Palestinian Authority, have yet to issue their first statement in Arabic that calls for peaceand reconciliation with Zionism and/or the State of Israel.

I inquired as to whether the Italian consul, Mr. Gianni Ghisi, the person responsible for organizing theEuropean consuls to fund the new Palestinian textbooks, had even seen the new textbooks of thePalestinian Authority that he had funded.

Mr. Ghisi responded by saying that the PA would not let him see the books before they were published,despite an agreement that they had to review the texts before publication.

Recognizing that the PLO and the PA had instead substituted incitement for peace in their officialrhetoric, the US, the PLO and Israel agreed at the Wye conference in October, 1998 to establish acontinuing task force to address the subject of official PLO incitement to war. The task force metconsistently for more than a year, even into the Barak administration, which assumed the helm ofIsraeli leadership in July, 1999.

Barak appointed Yaakov Erez, Editor ofMaariv, Israels daily newspaper, to head Israels delegationto the task force on incitement.

The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, an agency that monitors schoolbooks on all sides of theMiddle-East conflict, dispatched streams of material to the task force, and organized an unusualnonpartisan session of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in May to address the subject of PA education,which constantly depicts Israel as a Nazi entity that needs to be wiped off of the face of the earth.

Following my visit to the PA curriculum center in Al-Bira where I had perused the new textbooks of thePA, I called Yaakov Erez to ask him if the textbooks had been evaluated by the task force onincitement. Erez told me that he had resigned from the committee, and referred me to the Israel ForeignMinistry, who had assigned a senior staff member to continue Israeli representation at the committee.

When I got to the Israel Foreign Ministry and finally located the staff person was assigned to theincitement committee, he informed me that the task force on incitement was no longer holdingsessions. The reason he gave waslack of interest demonstrated by the current US ambassador.

So there you have it.

Meira begins first grade knowing the Sesame Street song in Arabic by heart, wondering aloud if shewill ever have an Arab friend, while, on his first day of school, Muhammad will be handed a map ofIsrael where the name of the legal state is replaced with the name Palestine.Meira will learn toleranceand democracy while Muhammad will be inculcated to do everything that he can in his young life tomake war on my children.


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arrest one hundred me, all of whom were on his payroll and none of whom were wanted by Israel. Allof them were arrested for embarrassing the Palestinian Authority.

In the words of the IDF spokesman, Arafat did not pay attention to Secretary Powell when theAmerican secretary of state declared that Arafat would have to rein in the terrorists who are fightingIsrael. Arafat has not learned his lesson.


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Why the Palestinians are Winning the Media War: An Interview with David BedeinReform Judaism Magazine

August 17, 2002

David Bedein has run the Jerusalem-based Israel Resource News Agency, which provides newsservices for the foreign media, since 1987. He has also worked on special assignment for BBC, CNN

Radio, the Los Angeles Times, and the weekly Israel news magazine Makor Rishon. He wasinterviewed by RJ editor Aron Hirt-Manheimer.

Do you agree with those who say that the Palestinians have been doing a better job than the

Israelis on the public relations front?

Yes. For the past twenty years, the Palestinians have outmaneuvered the Israelis in framing the conflictfor the world media. The turning point came during the 1982 Lebanon War, when the Palestiniansinitiated a propaganda campaign to cast themselves as the defenders of human rights and the Israelis asthe violators of human rights.

At the same time, Yasser Arafats brother, Dr. Fatchi Arafat, exploited his position as director of the

Palestinian Red Crescent Society to release grossly inflated casualty figures. On June 10, 1982, forexample, Dr. Arafat issued a statement declaring that 10,000 Palestinians have died and 600,000 havebecome homeless in the first few days of the war--a lie calculated to portray the Palestinians as thevictims of a genocidal assault in Lebanon. In fact, the total population in the war zone numbered fewerthan 300,000. Yet the International Red Cross and Middle East Action Committee of the AmericanFriends Service Committee spread the 10,000/600,000 figure to every media outlet in the world, andthe major American networks picked up the story.

NBCs Jessica Savitch reported, It is now estimated that 600,000 refugees in south Lebanon arewithout sufficient food or medical supplies.

Palestinian media professionals have no qualms about deceiving the media for political advantage. Intheir attempt to convince the world that the IDF massacred hundreds of civilians in the Jenin refugeecamp during Operation Defensive Shield, they used animal carcasses to fill the air with the stench ofrotting flesh in places where reporters and UN officials were likely to visit. The IDF caught that ployon video, as well as a staged funeral in which the body jumped out of the coffin and ran for coverwhen an Israeli surveillance plane flew over the site.

Are you suggesting that such tactics have been counterproductive?

Not at all. Such bloopers are the exception. The Palestinians have an excellent track record inmanipulating images that appear in the world media. They achieved an enormous propaganda windfallat the beginning of the second intifada, when a Palestinian film crew working for a French televisionnetwork recorded the shooting of eleven-year-old Mohammed a-Dura as his father tried in vain toshield him during a battle at a road junction near Gaza. The video, edited to portray the IDF as heartlesschild killers, fit the Palestinian story line perfectly.The Israeli government fell into the trap, issuing an apology even before investigating the incident.Mohammed a-Dura, the poster boy of the second intifada, will go down in history as a celebratedmartyr of the Palestinian people and yet, the Palestinian version of a-Duras death is a lie, an inventionof Palestinian P.R. professionals. A thorough IDF investigation, which was issued three weeks after theincident and confirmed by a German TV crew, showed that the bullets fired at the boy had come fromthe direction of Palestinian gunmen who had attacked an Israeli guard post. But the world hadwitnessed the shooting of a-Dura, as the media scripted it an atrocity committed by Israeli troops


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In contrast, when foreign correspondents meet with Israeli officials, they are often greeted by slickgovernment spokespeople at fancy hotels, state-of-the-art media centers, or modern offices. Israelispokespeople labor under three false notions. First, that formal, professionally packaged P.R. ispersuasive.; Second, that lengthy explanations of the history of the conflict will be more effective thansound bytes in convincing the public of the rightness of their cause.Third, that the moral correctness of

their action and cause is self-evident to any rational, fair-minded human being. Along these lines,Israels Foreign Minister Shimon Peres once said: Good policies are good P.R.; they speak forthemselves. Unfortunately, Peres was wrong. A lie can be more powerful than the truth, if you marketyour lie well enough for people to believe it.

Another problem with Israeli P.R. is that it is woefully uncoordinated and sometimes contradictory.News originates from at least four different offices: the IDF, the Foreign Ministry, the Israeli PrimeMinisters Office, and the Defense Ministry - and at times each conveys a different message.

On October 28, 2001, for example, Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres gave numerous interviews toIsraeli and foreign news bureaus stating that Arafat was not responsible for the current wave of terror,and produced as proof the fact that the PA had recently arrested several Hamas terrorists. Yet on thatsame day, IDF intelligence met with more than a hundred journalists to present evidence linking Arafatand his Fatah organization to Hamas terror activity. Explaining how Hamas terror groups train andoperate in the full view of the Palestinian Authority security services, an Israeli military spokesmanfurnished the media with documentation that the Hamas wing operates as an official, integral part ofArafats Palestinian Authority security forces in Gaza. He also pointed out that two wanted Hamasterrorists working for the Palestinian security services had murdered four women and wounded fiftycivilians at the Hadera bus station that very morning.

In contrast to the seemingly uncoordinated messages coming from Israel, spokespeople of theautocratic Palestinian Authority adhere to a party line with practiced discipline, simply reciting thestandard litany of complaints about their oppression, the occupation, human rights abuses,racism, etc.

Why do you think the Israel government has had such difficulty in recent years getting its point

of view across to the Western media?

I think Israel made a major mistake in 1986, when Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and his deputyDr. Yossi Beilin revised the way in which the government would relate to the PLO. They asked theMinistry of Foreign Affairs to cease distribution of the PLO Covenant, which has never officiallychanged the provision calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. They also asked that the ministrystop defining the PLO as an enemy. In countless briefings that the ministry held in the late 1980s, bothPeres and Beilin explained that the time had come to put the fight with the PLO in the past. The 1986Peres/Beilin policy change paved the way two years later for the US government to recognize the PLO.

The Israeli government also gave the Palestinians a free ride from 1993- 2000, during the seven-yearOslo process, by downplaying terrorist attacks and the two-faced message of the Palestinian leadership,which presented a message of peace in English and a message of war in Arabic. To keep the Osloprocess from collapsing, both Israeli and US leaders decided in 1993 to ignore the PAs daily radio andTV calls for a renewed war against Israel. Indeed, in 1995, when the Institute for Peace Education Ltd.,which our agency helped to facilitate, produced videos of Arafats speeches promoting jihad (holywar), then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres asked IsraelTV not to air any of Arafats speeches in Arabic. In September 1995, Peres went so far as to ask


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The constitution consistently refers to rights limited to "followers of all monotheisticreligions." This statement might not be so ambiguous were it not for Hamas claims thatJudaism isdevil worship Who, then, would decide whether or not a religion is monotheistic?The truth undoubtedly comes to the surface with the guarantee for freedom of access being in"accordance with the historic commitment of the Palestinian people and the international

commitments of Palestine." If the Palestinians claim that the Jewish presence in HebronsCave of the Patriarchs threatens sovereignty, must the Jews right of access to one of Judaismsmost sacred sites be denied?

Article (37):

Freedom of thought shall be guaranteed. Individuals shall have the right toexpress their opinions and publicize them in writing, speech, art, or other meansof expression within the provisions of the law. The law may only apply minimalrestrictions on the practice thereof so as to safeguard the rights and liberties ofothers.

Despite its ambiguous wording, this Article contradicts what it appears to want to protect. TheArticles contains a restriction that completely nullifies freedom of thought. It refrains fromstating that freedoms of expression that attack the rights and liberties of others will not betolerated. Who will decide what is considered minimal and the exact restrictions that thelaw may apply? Would this be Sharia Law or perhaps some type democratic law which, asseen above, would be disallowed according to other Articles in this constitution? Is it simplyan oversight that the last sentence is absent from the Arabic version of the document?

Instead, the text states that freedom of thought is guaranteed and includes respect of the rightsof others.What group can offer this guarantee and what others will it respect?

Article (38):

The right to publish newspapers or other means of the media is universal andguaranteed by the constitution. Financial sources for such purposes shall besubject to legal control.

This article reflects both an expectation and a current reality. Newspapers in the PA are andwill be financed from abroad. The PA has circumvented this by ensuring that all of its dailynewspapers are either owned outright or controlled by Arafat.

Article (39):

Freedom of the press, including print, audio, and visual media, and thoseworking in the media, is guaranteed. The media shall freely exercise its missionand express different opinions within the framework of society's basic values,while preserving rights, liberties and public duties in a manner consistent withthe rule of law. The media may not be subject to administrative censorship,hindrance, or confiscation, except by court order in accordance with the law.

Again, the right of freedom for the press is undermined by an unspecified proviso that the


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know that the Saudi initiative, which supports the "Right of Return", provides the basis for the RoadMap. This can be found in the document entitled " A Performance-Based Roadmap to a PermanentTwo-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict"http://www.un.org/media/main/roadmap122002.html.

In other words, the "Saudi Peace Plan" demands that Israel accept the recognition of the "Right of

Return" for any Palestinian Arab refugee or any refugee descendant who desires to act upon his or her"right".

All this is in line with the Palestinian State Constitution, authored by the same Nabil Shaath and ratifiedon March 26th by the US-funded Palestine Legislative Council (PLC). This constitution legislates the"Right of Return" for all Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents to return to the villages from1948, even if they no longer exist .Thousands of maps recently issued and distributed by the PalestinianNational Authority in Arabic and in English provide a clear guide for Palestinian Arab refugees andtheir descendants to forcibly take back the 531 Arab villages lost in 1948 which have been replaced byIsraeli cities, collective farms and woodlands.

Not one of the villages to where Palestinian Arab refugees demand the "Right of Return" are located inJudea, Samaria (also known as the West Bank) or Gaza.

Only last week, Palestinian Arabs fired Qassam rockets into Ashkelon from UN refugee camps in Gaza.Some 24 hours thereafter, an announcement aired on the Palestinian Authority's PBC Voice of Palestinestated that "Palestinian fighters had attacked the Israeli settlement in Majdal-Ashkelon."

The emphasis in the announcers voice was on Majdal, alluding to the fact (which his Arab Palestinianlisteners would be expected to know) that Ashkelon has been built on the ruins of al-Majdal, a clusterof Arab villages.

The refugee residents of UNRWA camps in Gaza speak of the necessity of removing "illegal Israelisettlements" to achieve peace.

One might think that they are referring to the 21 Israeli Jewish farming communities that have beenfounded on the sand dunes south of Gaza in the context of their claim to all of Gaza.

However, an example of a settlement that the UNRWA camp residents wish to remove is the "illegalIsraeli settlement" of Ashkelon, which replaced Majdal and other Arab villages as a result of the 1948war, or the constantly shelled Sderot, which replaced Arab villages in the Negev.

"Right of Return": Motto of the Palestinian Authority

The emergence of a Palestinian Arab entity in the form of the Palestinian Authority has done little tostem Palestinian Arab expectations for the "Right of Return".

After the erosion of the Camp David negotiations during Summer 2000, both the Israeli and PalestinianArab delegations confirmed that the talks broke down because Israel did not recognize the "Right ofReturn" Israeli negotiator Dan Meridor told me in an interview in September, 2000, the Israelidelegation was amazed that the Palestinian Arab delegation was so adamant on the full recognition ofthe "Right of Return".

Yet Palestinian Legislative Council Chairman, Ahmad Qurei, [a.k.a. Abu Alaa], Arafat's most recent


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However, on May 23, 2003, two days before the Road Map was affirmed with strong reservations bythe Israeli cabinet, Shimon Schiffer, the senior diplomatic correspondent for the Yediot Aharonotnewspaper, reported that "the Americans rejected one of Israel' central demands that the PalestinianArabs would agree to concede the Right of Return in return for Israel's recognition of a PalestinianArab state".

The US also rejected Israel's request to remove the Saudi proposal - a full withdrawal to the lines ofJune 4, 1967, recognition of the Right of Return, in exchange for the recognition of Israel by the Arabcountries and natural relations - as the basis of the Road Map's authority.

The US support for the "Right of Return" is not a theoretical matter.

That support was translated into $114 million the US contributed over the past fiscal year to UNRWA,an amount that comprisesthirty pecent of the UNRWA budget.

On August 4th, the US allocated an additional $26 million to UNRWA, with no strings attached tomandate that the organization not promote the "Right of Return"

Will the US Congress Place Constraints on UNRWA?

Deputy Chairman of the US House International Relations Committee Rep. Chris Smith (R;NJ),successfully offered an amendment on August 18th expressing the "Sense of the Congress" that"UNRWA was failing to vigorously oppose terrorism. He also called on the Department of State andUNRWA's own leadership to "take more pro-active steps to disassociate UNRWA from the terroristelements that operate within and among its staff and humanitarian operations". Smith's amendmentdemands that UNRWA comply with section 301(c) of the US Foreign Assistance Act, which curtails USaid to any humanitarian agency which hosts military training.

It will soon be up to the US Congress to determine if they agree with the assessment of the Dr. ReuvenEhrlich, the head of Israel's "Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center". In December, 2002, Dr.Ehrlich wrote a position paper for Israeli intelligence which concluded that "Terrorist OrganizationsUse UNRWA officials and Facilities to Carry out Terrorist Activities"(See text on Israel Resource Review of March 31, 2003)


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Shaath served as Chairman of the PLO Constitution Committee, and has overseen the drafting of anew constitution, approved by the PL.C, for the proposed Palestinian state. This is a constitution thatwould establish a state based on strict Islamic law and mandate the right of every Palestinian Arabrefugee and refugee descendent to return to their homes from 1948.

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu-Mazen)First PNA Prime Minister, April to September 2003Member, Palestine National CouncilMember, PLO Executive CommitteeCo-Founder, FatahAbu-Mazen is widely considered a moderate:He participated in the negotiation process during the Madrid Conference, and headed the Palestiniannegotiating team to the secret Oslo talks that preceded an agreement. A long-time head of the PLONegotiating Affairs Department, he was a signatory to the Principles of Declaration signed inSeptember 1993, and the Interim Agreement in 1995. That same year, working secretly with IsraeliDeputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin he drafted a controversial Framework for the Conclusion of aFinal Status Agreement between Israel and the PLO (better known as the Abu-Mazen - Beilin Plan)and then refused to sign the document.Yossi Beilin voices the opinion that Abu-Mazens positions are more extreme than Arafats, since hewas among Arafats restrictors during the Camp David summit.

Abn-Mazen lauded Arafats rejection of Baraks offer at Camp David in 2000, saying, I do not feelany regret. What we did was the right thing to do. No opportunity was missed, since the opportunitydid not existthey say we offered 95% (of the territory), and I ask why not 100%?

According to Arabic News, once the Al Aqsa Intifada (Im not sure if this should be italicized)began,, there were some among Arafats advisors who pressed for a settlement with Israel. However,Abu- Mazen, a man recently touted as conciliatory, advised Arafat to continue the armed uprising untilthe goal of a Palestinian state was achieved.

Among other positions of Abu Mazen that cast grave doubt on his moderation:He has given sanction to killing civilian Jews in the West Bank and Gaza. In the Arabic paper AsharqAlawsat, he said: It is our right to resist. The intifada must continue, and it is the right of thePalestinian people to resist and use all possible means in order to defend its presence and existence. Iadd and say that if the Israelis come to your land in order to erect a settlement then it is your right todefend what is yours [using] all means and arms as long as they are coming to your home.

He insists on the right of return, which, if implemented, would destroy Israel: The refugees of 1948and the refugees of 1967 have the right reserved to return to their homeland and every place they haveleftthis is not only limited to land under the sovereignty of the PA. We demand their return to Jaffa,to Haifa and the other regions that they came from.

Regarding the existence of a Jewish Temple at the Temple Mount, he commented: I challenge theassertion [that there has ever been a Jewish temple.]But even if it were true, we do not accept it becauseit is not the logic of someone who wants a practical peace.

He was praised for criticizing the militarization of the Second intifada, but later clarified: We didntsay we would stop the armed struggle. We said that the militarization of the intifada should stop. This is


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National Security Advisor (Arafat appointment)Former Head, West Bank Preventive Security ForcesMember, FatahFor throwing a grenade at an Israeli military jeep and killing Israeli soldiers, he spent the years from1968 until 1986 in Israeli prisons (where he learned Hebrew and English). As a result of his role in theintifada in 1987, he was then expelled to Lebanon.

Upon returning to PA-controlled territory in the West Bank in 1994, he took over the Security Forcesthere, bringing together thousands of young men, most of whom who had been involved in the intifada.

Rajoub is a strong PA loyalist. He has a reputation as someone who abuses Arab human rights andfrequently resorts to crude strong-arm techniques; more than one journalist who has criticized the PA orArafat has received a visit from Preventive Security.

Rajoub has turned a blind eye to terrorism, saying: If I have information about terror activity in AreaB [where Israel has responsibility for security], I wont give it to the Israelis.

He has also voiced support for Hamas, telling Al-Jazeera television on May 27, 1998: We viewHamas as part of the national and Islamic liberation movement At the top of my list is the occupationand not Hamas. We are not interested in arrests.

On April 19, 2002, Israels then Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky reported the following duringa briefing he gave regarding Israeli activities in Operation Defensive Shield: we went to the base ofJabril Rajoub. This is an army base, but we also found a lot of costumes for people that are going tomake suicide bombings - fake hair and kippas [skullcaps] for people who are going to put them on sothey can get into Israeli streets and make suicide bombings. We have some of the pictures

Rajoub, for whom a bright future in the PA has been predicted, was actually fired by Arafat in 2002because he was perceived as a threat. He returned to favor in August 2003, when Arafat appointed himas his National Security Advisor. (Rajoub - who has a fiercely competitive relationship with Dahlan -had acquired value as a counterweight to Dahlan, who had become an Abu-Mazen loyalist.)

In November 2003, he called for increased Iraqi resistance to the American occupation.

Sari Nusseibeh

President, Al Quds University, East JerusalemMember, FatahHe played a role of significance during the intifada of 1987. In bills of indictment brought againstseven leaders of the violence in Lod Military Court in 1989, the Israeli government prosecutor statedthat Nusseibeh served as a conduit for money for financing the intifada, and that Nusseibeh wasresponsible for drawing up reports and leaflets for intifada purposes such as instructing intifadaactivists [on]throwing firebombs at Israelis and fighting with knives.

During the 1991 Gulf War, he was caught contacting Iraqi officials in order to help direct the Scudrocket attacks of Saddam Hussein. According to a statement by Col. (Res.) Shalom Harari, former ArabAffairs Advisor for the Israeli Defense Ministry: While the rockets were falling it becameclearthat[he]was telephoning the Iraqi ambassador in one of the neighboring countries to tell theIraqis where to shoot the missile.


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supervised the preparation of the bomb. The CIA had recordings of Abu-Shbak giving orders for other attacks, as well. The I.D.F. captured a secret Preventive Security document in November 2001 depicting a plan toproduce large quantities of acid for use in bomb-making a terrorist attack. The document indicates thatAbu-Shbak was one of the people involved in approving technical specifications and financing mode.

During a press conference on August 22, 2002, Abu-Shbak, at that point already Gaza PreventativeSecurity Chief, put on display Akram Muhammad Al-Zatma, a Palestinian student suspected ofinforming Israel of the whereabouts of Hamas military leader Salah Shehadeh. Al-Zatma had beenarrested a month earlier and held in detention until the press conference, when he was turned over toHamas gunmen and summarily executed.

Hanan Ashrawi

Minister of Information, Arab LeagueFounder and Secretary-General, MIFTAHMember, Palestinian Legislative CouncilMember, FatahAshrawi, both as a woman and as a Christian, is an anomaly amidst the Palestinian activists amongwhom she frequently moves. For these reasons, and others, she has perhaps attracted more than hershare of attention. While unsuited for Palestinian Arab radio and television, she continues to be aninformal spokesperson for the Palestinian cause due to her fluency in English and her on-screen poisewhich have made her an attractive candidate for international interviews.

Ashrawi has, however, a propensity for playing fast and loose with facts. The following serve asexamples: She claimed that the land of Israel has no basis in history and that Jesus was a Palestinian. She justified the brutal lynching in the West Bank on October 12, 2000 of two Israeli reservists (whowere clearly not undercover as they were acknowledged by journalists to be in fatigues and driving acar with Israeli plates) with a fabrication: The two undercover Israeli agents that had infiltrated themarch were recognized by the Palestinians as members of the Death Squads that had been responsiblefor assassinations In making a point regarding the Palestinian right of return, she offered CNN desk anchor DarynKagan the blatant untruth that all refugees throughout the world have the right to return, according tolaw. Distorting the historical reality of the British having been assigned the mandate to establish a Jewishhomeland in Palestine (which was carved from the Ottoman Empire and not independent), she claimed:There was a Palestinian state....Just because we were under occupation Just because we were placedunder the British Mandate Palestine existed.My birth certificate says Palestine.Anything before47 said Palestine.


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On the Palestinian School Curriculum: Erasing IsraelThe Philadelphia Bulletin

August 28, 2006

As this is being written, in late August 2006, news wires around the world are publicizing thatMahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, has launched a new peace initiative with Israel.

However, contradictory to the seemingly exciting news, the new school books the said Mr. Abbas has just introduced in the Palestinian Authority school system which is run independently of Hamas -offer a curriculum educating a new generation of Palestinians in the destruction of Israel.

Only this past summer, the world witnessed Abbas and the Palestinian Authority giving fervent supportto Hezbollah's war on Israel., The present question to be raised is whether the new academic year,which commences next week in the Palestinian Authority, will simply add fuel to the fire of the PA'swar against Israel, rather than the new peace initiative with the Jewish State being exposed throughoutthe media.

The new PA school books have also been incorporated into the Arab schools in Jerusalem, raising causefor further concern. A movement is occurring within in the Israeli Arab schools throughout Israel toadopt the PA curriculum as well.

Indeed, the latest study of PA textbooks, (see: www.intelligence.org.il/eng/default.htm), commissionedby the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Herzliya (www.intelligence.org.il), an agencythat had been consistently supportive of the Oslo Peace Process), speaks for itself.

Here are some of the pearls of wisdom the Palestinian children will learn from the new school books ofthe Palestinian Authority this year:

1. Israel does not appear on any of the world maps contained in the new PA textbooks. "Palestine"appears in place of Israel.

2. Sites in Israel are "annexed" to Palestine;. "Haifa is a Palestinian seaport," (p. 7)(Lughatuna al-Jamila [Our Beautiful Language] Vol. 2, 5th grade textbook, p. 86), "Galilee, Nazareth and BeitShe'an are regions in Palestine," (p. 7) ( Al-Iqtisad al-Manzili [Home Economy], 10th gradetextbook, pp. 36-37.

3. Israel is mentioned only as an enemy, in reference to "occupation of lands" in 1948 and1967:"There is no doubt that the Israeli occupation has a negative impact on [Palestinian]agriculture and its export," (p. 8) Lughatuna al-Jamila [Our Beautiful Language] Vol. 1, 10th

grade textbook, p. 102).

4. Zionism is presented only as an enemy movement: "The Palestinian people are under anoppressive siege, limiting their movement and way of life," (p. 9) A-Tarbiyah al-Islamiyyah[Islamic Education], Vol. 1, 5th grade textbook, p. 49).There are accusations against settlements [from 1948!] of damaging water sources "the influenceof settlement on sources of water in Palestine," (p. 9) Ulum al-Sihha wal-B'ia [Health andEnvironmental Sciences] 10th grade textbook, p. 122. "The Palestinian family hasproblems...stemming from the occupation...it loses father, mother or son to death or


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imprisonment...endures the difficulties of life...," (p. 11) A-Tarbiyah al-Wataniyya [NationalEducation], 5th grade textbook, p. 23).

5. A false claim is made that an "extremist Zionist" set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969, (p. 12)Tarikh al'Alam al-Hadith wal-Mu'asir[History of the New Modern World], 10th grade textbook,p. 106), when the arson was really committed by a mentally unstable fundamentalist Christian

Australian.

6. Another nefarious assertion is that the First Zionist Congress at Basel fostered the Zionist Statebased on a secret decision of what came came to be known as the "Protocols of the Elders ofZion." (p. 13) Tarikh al-'Alam al-Hadith wal Mu-'asir [History of the NewModern World], 10thgrade textbook, pp. 60-64.)

7. The professed falsehood that only ancient inhabitants of Israel were Arabs totally ignores theancient Jewish presence in the region. "Concentrated...in the land of A-Sham [GreaterSyria]...was the culture of the Canaanite and Aramaic peoples who migrated there from the Arabpeninsula," (p.14-15) Tarikh al-Hadarat al-Qadima [History of Ancient Civilizations], 5th gradetextbook, (Foreword).

8. Palestinians must use war and violence - especially martyrdom - to accomplish their goals:The heroic mother, "who incessantly presents one sacrifice [fida'] after another." Lughatuna al-Jamila [Our Beautiful Language], Vol 2, 5th grade textbook, p. 31).The warrior goes to war faced with one of the good options: victory or martyrdom in battle for thesake of Allah. (Ibid. Vol. 1, 5th grade textbook, p. 70)."Allah gave the people of this land (A-Sham and Palestine) an important task: they must stand onthe forefront of the Muslim campaign against their enemies, and only if they fulfill their duty totheir religion, nation, and land will they be rewarded as stated in the scriptures." ( A-Tarbiya alIslamiyyah [Islamic Education], Vol 2, 10th grade textbook, p. 50).

9. The children featured in the books have such such as Jihad (holy war) and Nidal (struggle).(p.22) (Tarikh al-Hadarat al Qadima [History of Ancient Civilizations], 5th grade textbook, p.6).

10. The importance of "return" of refugees to all of Palestine - by violence - is emphasized:"The wrong must be made right by returning them to their homes: we returned to the homelandafter a long absence."Lughatuna al-Jamila [Our Beautiful Language)], Vol 2, 5th grade textbook,p. 43). "Returning to the homes, the plains and the mountains, under the banners of glory, jihad[holy war] and struggle" Ibid., Vol 1, 5th grade textbook, p.88).

Tragically, most Israeli leaders do not take the influence of such "education" as seriously as theyshould.In May, 2001, when I asked then-Mayor of Jerusalem Ehud Olmert about the incorporation of PAtextbooks in the Arab schools in Jerusalem, his answer was, "they can teach what they want, and wewill teach what we want."

Questions on this issue submitted to Mr. Olmert - who is now Israels prime inister - have goneunanswered. When theEvening Bulletin raised the issue of the curriculum to Olmert's cabinet secretary,he replied that the issue is not on the agenda.


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Ten Obstacles to Middle East PeaceNovember 4, 2009

Israel Resource Review

1. November 2, 2009 marked the 92nd anniversary of Balfour Day, which led to the 1922 San RemoTreaty and to the 1924 League of Nations ratification of the San Remo Treaty, which recognized the

right of Jews to purchase land in the Jewish national homeland, defined as anywhere west of theJordan River. Ratified by the UN in 1945, that is the basis of international law by which Israel can,indeed, settle the land of Israel with Jews who come from the four corners of the earth.

The internationally ratified legal basis for Israel has been forgotten.2. The Arab league rejected the idea of a Jewish national home, declaring a war of extermination in

1945 and actualizing that declaration in 1948. That declaration still exists.The Arab Leagues war toexterminate Israel continues. Egypt was then the dominant nation of the Arab League. The Saudis,however, remain the dominant element of the Arab League today, as the only nation contiguous toIsrael to have never signed any armistice or peace treaty with the Jewish State.

3. Perhaps the most effective tactic of the Arab League was to spawn the PLO under its aegis, whosetask it would be to coordinate indigenous Palestinian Arabs to join the Arab states in their war toconquer and displace the Jewish State. To this day, the PLO, led by the Fatah, reports to the ArabLeague, which has never changed its charter to destroy Israel. For that matter, neither has the PLOchanged its charter of an identical nature.. At the same time, the Fatah conveys the false impressionto the world that it is the product of a grass roots Palestinian national movement. Yet the PLO plan,changed the map and the peoples perception of the Arab campaign to exterminate Israel, to makethe war look like one of national liberation.

4. The Arab League continued its war of extermination by confining Palestinian Arab refugees from1948 to the squalor of refugee camps, under the premise and promise of the Right of Return. Their

presence in UNRWA refugee camps continues to this day, under the aegis of the UN, throughUNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

5. UNRWAs purpose is to fulfill successive UN resolutions that promote the supposed inalienableright of Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents to return to villages wherein they livedprior to 1948. Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants in the UNRWA camps learn that the531 Israeli villages, kibbutzim, moshavim (cooperative agricultural community) and neighborhoodsthat replaced the Arab villages, are the illegal Israeli settlements. They are located in Jerusalem, TelAviv, Haifa, Ashkelon, Beersheva, Ashdod, Sderot and hundreds of other places throughout Israelwherein communities were established on the ruins of Arab villages after 1948. While the popularimagination posits that the Palestinian Arab national ambition is solely to replace the Israelicommunities in Judea, Samaria and Katif, the Palestinian Arab ambition as dictated by the PLO andits patron in the Arab League, is to take back the lands lost in 1948. UNRWA, financed by the USand other Western nations, reinforces that ambition. UNRWA has recently been taken over byHamas, to ensure that the ambition to actualize the right of return has gained a new, Islamicemphasis. After all, one need only to note how many Palestinian Arab refugees have left theteeming UNRWA Arab refugee camps in Gaza to live on the lands of the expelled Jewishcommunities from Katif. Not one. Why? Because the dictate of the PA, the PLO and Hamas is thatPalestinian Arab refugees and their descendants must return to the homes and villages that they leftafter 1948 - to Jaffa, Beersheva, Ashdod, Ashkelon, etc.


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6. Instead of spurring the newly recognized Palestinian national entity to establish a nation statealongside Israel, the Palestinian Authority, established in 1994,has launched a base from where theycan liberate the rest of Palestine.

7. Meanwhile, the PA has established an educational system to educate the next generation that Israelmust not exist. The new PA school books and the new PA maps speak for themselves, as the first

school curriculum since the Third Reich to inculcate the idea that war must be made on the Jewsand that Jews are less than human. The PA school books go one step beyond the Nazis, however, asthey introduce lesson plans praising those who murder Jews. While the Nazis murdered Jews, theyalways attempted to obfuscate their acts. The Palestinian Authority however teaches their childrento take pride in the act of murdering a Jew.

8. To further reinforce the Palestinian entity around a renewed religious determination of thecontinued war to liberate all of Palestine, the PA adopted the draft of an Islamic constitution, basedon Sharia (Moslem) law. This was revealed to the public by a senior official in the Vatican whoaddressed visiting US congressmen in March 2003. This radical constitution was sponsored by theUS government, through US AID.

9. Meanwhile, the Hamas Islamic movement took control of the PA legislature in democratic electionsthat were held under the sponsorship of the American government in January 2006,. This led to aFatah-Hamas power sharing agreement known as the Mecca Accord, signed between Fatah andHamas in March 2007. When Fatah began to hesitate in carrying out the Mecca Accord, Hamasovertook Gaza in its entirety in June, 2007.

10. The PA has made it clear that it will make no deal with Israel that does not assure theRight of Return for Palestinian Arab refugees, PA control over Jerusalem, and theestablishment of full and in its entirety.


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Consequences of a Palestinian Arab StateThe Philadelphia Bulletin

January 25, 2007

At a time when the establishment of a Palestinian Arab sovereign state is so widely discussed, few havetaken the time to consider the consequences of such an entity. Below are questions that every citizen

can and should bring to the attention of the US government and to the Israeli Ministry of ForeignAffairs. These questions can help that conceptualize the idea and suitable responses will help publicizethe ramifications of establishing such an entity:1. Encirclement: Will a proposed sovereign Palestine not engulf Jordan, most of whose population is

Palestinian, leaving Israel with a hostile state from the Iraqi border to the Mediterranean Sea, witha corridor across the Negev between Gaza to Hebron?

2. Israeli Arabs: Will the Arabs of the Galilee and the Triangle (David, what is the triangle?) not suefor "autonomy," and then demand the fulfillment of U.N. Resolution 181 - an Israeli withdrawal tothe 1947 borders (evacuation of Nahariya, Acre, Nazareth, Jaffa, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gatand Beersheva)?

3. Terror: Will a new Palestinian entity disband terrorist organizations? After all, Mahmoud Abbashas so far refused to dismantle or disband Fatahs al Aqsa Brigades which continue to fire missilesinto the Western Negev.

4. Armament: How can there be any expectation that a sovereign Palestine will uphold any and allcommitments for demilitarization, since the Palestinian Authority never upheld any suchcommitment since the Oslo Accords?

5. Refugees: Based on Israel's surprising agreement to view the Saudi plan as the basis for a state,does that not mean that Israel will have to absorb descendents of refugees and thus displace

thousands of Israelis from cities like Haifa, Safed (Tfzat) and Jaffa as well as 80 kibbutzim whichreplaced Arab neighborhoods or villages from whence Arabs fled in 1948?

6. Air space: Will the Israel Air Force be forbidden from flying over the "West Bank," just as it wasbanned from the Lebanese skies?

7. Alliances: Based on diplomatic experience with the Palestinian Authority, upon signing militaryagreements with countries hostile to Israel, will Palestine not violate every prohibition thusplacing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on Israel's borders?

8. Water: Like the Palestinian Authority before it, will a sovereign Palestine not carry out piratedrillings, and threaten the mountain aquifer of Judea and Samaria?

9. Jewish sovereignty: Will the momentum of a Palestine not erase the right of the Jews to the land ofIsrael in international consciousness?

10. Loss of independence: Will Israel not become a protectorate that is subject to the Quartet - theU.S., the EU, the U.N. and Russia?


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Documents

PA State Backgrounder